Coordinating counsel. You have five minutes for opening statement. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is tom fanning. I am the chairman, president and ceo of southern company. Also the immediate past chairman of the electric institute. The association that represents all u. S. Investor electric companies. However im addressing you today in any role as one of three cochairs of the electricity sub sector coordinating counsel. We clob rate with colleagues from public power utility and Rural Electric corporatives. Im pleased to address the subcommittee and share the steps the electric Power Industry is taking to make Energy Infrastructure smarter and resilient. Allowing us to continue delivery affordable and reliable power. The 2017 Hurricane Season highlights the critical importance of corporation and coordination among electric Utility Companies. The government and other key Infrastructure Industries to ensure fast, efficient recovery for customers. The electric sector fates evolving threats to the energy grid. The industry Risk Mitigation strategy emphasizes a defense in depth approach. We focus on preparation, prevention, response and recovery. With an emphasis on the isolation of and enhance protection for critical assets. While this hearing is focussed on storm response and recovery it is important to note that our companies do not build the energy grid or our security responses to meet only one type of threat. We must prepare and plan for them all. Whether manmade or natural. Malicious or unintentional. Relating to the cyber or physical security or a combination of threats. Weather it an unavoidable part of the business. The industry works to identify gaps, compile Lessons Learned and best practices. As an industry we strive to be better today than yesterday. And be better tomorrow than we are today. Since super storm sandy five years ago this week. The electric Power Industry has combined efforts across all industry. And worked with the government partners to streamline restoration efforts in improve preparation for and response to major threats that cause significant outages. The benefit of this coordination were visible over the past several months as the industry and federal government work to prepare for and respond to the hurricane. There is an understandable urge to compare storms. But the reality is that each storm is different. The Common Threads however are the need for resilient infrastructure. A plan for response and recovery. And the awesome nature of our industry anlt ability to respond to emergency. Before i close, id like to under score the importance of the escc. During the most recent storms the es krshs c held daily coordination calls among impacted companies and government officials to address critical operational issues such as identifying specialized equipment needs. Removing temporary flagt restrictions for manned and Unmanned Aircraft to assist with aerial damage assessment. Coordinating how industry could reenter and access disaster areas and coordinate response areas efforts. With the oil and natural gas telecommunications, transportation, and water and waste water sector. Energy secretary rick perry was on every call. And was frequently joined by other officials such as homeland aking secretary. The calls were essential to identifying and address Critical Issues in the response and recovery effort. The reliability and resilience of the energy grid are paramount importance. Customers expect the lights to go on when they flip a switch. When the power goes out our customers expect it will be on soon. The electric power sector will continue to strive to mote the expectations through a multilayer strategy. To invest in smart Energy Infrastructure. Continuous enhancement of the industry government partnership. And the grit of the amazing men and women who make the energy grid workday in and day out. The subcommittee is showing great lead ship with focus on preparedness and look forward to working with you on this critical topic. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify in behalf of the escc and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. The chair is call upon mr. The executive director of the water Power Authority. Suffered devastation from two hurricanes. Irma and. Five minute opening statement. Im executive director and chief officer of the water and Power Authority. On behalf of the governor ot virgin islands. The delegate to congress. The member of the 32nd legislature sdp the governing board. I thank you for the invitation to provide testimony. On Energy Challenges facing the u. S. Vir injure islands as a result of the passage of Hurricane Maria and irma. As youre awe ware september of 2017. Virgin islands faced a phenomenon of two back to back category 5 hurricanes in two weeks. Wind scale the category 5 hurricane has sustained winds of 157 miles per hour. There were cases hurricane hirm winds about 190 miles per hour. Transmission and distribution facilities were plain sp simple destroyed by the catastrophic winds of two hurricanes. Due to hurricane irma, impact on september 6, 2017. The water island electrical trabs mission Distribution System suffered significant damage. The st. Thomas system sustained damage of approximately 80 . St. John approximately 90 . Water island 90 . Approximately two weeks later on tuesday september 19th, 2017. Hurricane maria caused damage to almost 60 of the transmission and Distribution System. The islands of didnt receive any significant damage from a result of Hurricane Maria. To date the authority has approximately 536 line men and other related off island personnel in the territory restoring the electrical infrastructure. With the assistance of fe ma, and cruise ships have been brought in to provide sleeping quarters for the off island crews since many hotels and houses throughout the territory remain closed after sustaining major damage. By far the biggest challenge that one i would like to focus on today, is funding daytoday operations and hardening of the system in event of future storms. Without question the hurricanes have decimated the finances. While we appreciate the assistance that has been had and will be forthcoming to rebuild the systems that were damaged, one of the primary concerns is the ability to meet prestorm expenses. Prior to Hurricane Authority revenue were approximately 25. 6 million per month. Since the Hurricane Events and since were unable to provide electric service and bill customers. Ref knew dropped below 2 million a month. R payroll insurance and maintenance. And Financing Agreements it must pay. To address this dramatic shortfall the authority sought to the government a Community Disaster loan. Any support or assistance you can offer in this regard is appreciated. One of the evident take away from the two category 5 hurricanes and significant damage territory wide, is that there is not urgent need for wa pa to rebuild the system. But to harden it and appoint where its resilient to wind storms. It believes it would reduce the post storm period moving away from introducing composite poles under major distribution circuits. And address the grid. Since its too susceptible to damage from wind storms. Each grid would be a localized group of electrical facilities that either work in tandem. Or option to disconnection where they can stand alone. In event the power and main grid is sprupted for any reason the micro grid will function. Currently you have in the works a micro grid on the island of st. Kroi. And provide through battery and solar power. A Police Station at this point. What we are attempting to do is a utility moving forward is harden our system number one. And basically make it resilient by having micro grids. I thank you for opportunity to appear. And im available to answer any questions you have on this matter. Thank you. I heard what irma didnt destroy. It did. Chair calls upon mr. Chet thompson. You have five minutes for opening statement. Thank you. Ranking member rush. Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for having me. Im the president and ce, of the american fuel and pet row chemical manufacture. The refining and industry. Our members represent 120 refineries. 140 chemical facilities. That represents 90 of u. S. Production capacity. More than half of that capacity is located along the gulf coast. Hurricane harvey impacted our facilities in the fuel supply chain very hard. Hurricane irma impacted the fuel supply chain largely in florida. While nates impact was minimal. More importantly, the hurricanes the combination of hurricanes harvey, irma and marry ya were devastating to people of the gulf coast. Particularly houston. Florida and puerto rico. Many of those impacted are part of the extended oil and gas family. Our hearts sp prayers go out to those still struggling to recover. We standby them and will help them any way we can. As a result of this personal impact, todays hearing is particularly important to our industry. Id like to limit my time this morning to this afternoon only to three key points of my written testimony. By and large the u. S. Refining industries weathered the storm fairly well and proved to be resilient. They did this this didnt happy accident. Rather it was a result of hard work and preparation. And with the help of an incredibly dedicated work force and federal state and local first responders. The true heros out of the events. If you want to draw the storm up that could reek the most havoc on the industry. Harvey was hit. It hit corpus kri christy as category 4. And moved up the east coast. Stalled over houston. Which is the epicenter of the refinery industry. It dumped over 60 inches of rain in some locations. And more than a trillion gallons of water across texas and louisiana. At its peak, harvey knocked 24 of the refineries offline. That represents 25 of all u. S. Refining capacity. It has a similar impact on chemical members. Knocked 60 of u. S. Pe troe chemical capacity down. 85 of the capacity in the gulf region. Harvey had a Significant Impact on the entire fuel supply chain. It shut down ports, pipelines and terminals. Rail and certainly gasoline stations. Our facilities couldnt get feed into the plants and we couldnt get product out. This had the potential to be catastrophic. For the fuel and chemical supply chain. In the end it wasnt. Just two weeks after harvey made land fall, 20 of the 24 facilities that went down had restarted. And the chemical facilities made substantial progress as well. Again this was not by accident. Facilities were prepared for the storm. And applied many Lessons Learned in the after math of previous storms like katrina. For example our facility developed more sophisticated preparedness plans. Kbrufed storm monitoring. Hardens Critical Infrastructure. Elevated pumps and generators. Spare parts so we could be ready to move with Recovery Efforts. We upgraded our i. T. Systems to locate employees. All of this made a difference. We came back online much faster than we did after prior storms. The second point id like to make the federal and state response was significantly approved compared to previous stormed. One of the lessons we learned we have to better coordinate with federal state and local government. Over the last few years we have been working hard in that regard. Closely with doe and dhs to improve our relationship. The results during harvey in particular were excellent. We were in Constant Contact before, during and after the storm. The improved coordination was most eft evident in the quick review and approval of storm waivers. Our federal and state partners particularly secretary perry, governors scott deserve credit for the improvements. If i to identify the one area that could be improved it would be better communication by the government to consumers about the fuel supply chain. And the challenges that often accompany events like hurricanes. For example the government could help explain the time line for bringing facilities back online. And getting product back to the distributors in the marketers. It could help us discourage panic buying that seem to accompany the event. Third and finally the companies will work with federal and state authorities to identify a apply Lessons Learned. Although we did fair fair lu well. No doubt theres going to be things we can learn and improve upon to make future responses better. We would caution anyone to result to knee jerk reaction or conclusion particularly those based on a few ice hated events before assessments are in. I know im running out of time. I thank you for the time and opportunity to speak. Id like to express our thanks and appreciation for the incredible work force. And our first responders. They certainly deserve our appreciation. Thank you. The chair calls upon mr. Max. The chief supply officer for. You have five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. On the retail communities response efforts to 2017 Hurricane Season. My name is max mcbrayer. Of racetrack petroleum ink. Testifies on maf of the National Association of Convenience Stores and the society of independent gasoline marketers of america. A family owned business in atlanta. Operating 450 Convenience Stores across 12 states. And employing 9,000 members. The 2017 hurricane a devastating effect on americas fuels infrastructure and markets. During Hurricane Harvey, flooding damaged more than a quarter of the u. S. Refining capacity and shut down fuel pipelines. This put severe strain on the domestic fuel supply. Hurricane irma led to increasing demand in florida, further causing prices to rise sharply. Natural disaster directly and severely affect the retail fuels market. Margins on fuel sales range between 2 cents and 20 cents and retailers must constantly react to changes in supply and demand to ensure their prices remain competitive. During any Severe Weather event, wholesale fuel prices become more volatile as the market tries to assess and anticipate supply availability. When these unwelcome changed occur, retailers respond to meet their cost. Damage, compliant fuel inventories became strained, leading to escalating wholesale prices. Retail market prices generally reflect rapid increase in the wholesale price. In this instance, fuel retailers made individual decisions on whether to increase prices and risk losing customers or potentially take losses by keeping prices low and not covering the increased wholesale cost. Despite the tough situations, the fuel market was supported of the actions of both the federal government and the state governments. The governments worked with us to deal with the issues before during and after the hurricanes. Communication and coordination initiatives were particularly important. For example, the governors of texas and florida held Conference Calls with industry and government stakeholders that where they listened to concerns and rendered prompt assistance. In florida, specifically, the Governors Office waived certain restrictions for highways, helped ensure that your they prioritized fuel shipments, coordinates escorts for tewell trucks and ships. At the federal level. Disaster response efforts spanned a number of agencies, which ultimately issued more than 30 waivers to help deal with fuel supply issues. Importance was providing assistance to affected areas. These waivers were the difference between getting fuel to our customers in a reasonably, affordable and timely manner and not being able to supply customers with the fuel they needed. In response to state petitions, federal agencies eased restrictions on the type of product retailers could sell. For example, epa temporarily waived certain reformulated gasoline requirements under the clean air act. Despite the major disruptions, to the fuel Distribution System after the hurricanes, the impact on consumers and the economy was still less than what occurred with hurricanes katrina and rita in 2005. Thats because the government worked with the private sector to respond appropriately. There are still important lessons to be learned, however. For instance, theres no good coordinated effort to make consumers to make sure that consumers were informed of the stotts of fuel supplies via social media. As the hurricanes approached, we believed much of the panic about fuel availability caused a significant and unnecessary pool on the available fuel supply. The panic lessened when information on the fuel supply was shared with the public. In addition bottlenecking at ports and fuel terminals was a problem that the government could have done nora leavate. Anything that can be done to remove hurdles for fuel transportation would speed up Recovery Efforts in the wake of future hurricanes. Racetrack believes the collaboration between the public and the private sectors was critical to the successful response efforts. We are proud to have been able to serve the communities that we operate in and i thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. Thank you. The chair now calls upon the honorable ramon nieves who is now an attorney at law, a former distinguished member of the senate of puerto rico. You have five minutes, sir. Thank you, chairman, Ranking Member rush, members of the subcommittee. I had the privilege to serve the people of puerto rico as senator of san juan and chairman of the committee on energy. I currently practice law in the state and federal courts of puerto rico. I want to thank the subcommittee for this opportunity to be discuss puerto ricos Energy Challenges. As a resident of san juan, i have personally suffered the problems associated with the lack of electricity for more than 40 days. The Current Energy crisis is destroying our economy and way of life. Nobody challenge of preparing the collapsed energy grid. I submit to you that most of the challenges to turn the light back on in puerto rico are neither natural nor geographic. They are manmade. The Puerto Rico Power Authority was already a bankrupt, fragile and useless entity before Hurricane Maria made landfall. The Power Authority grid was obsolete lacking adequate maintenance. Whitefish was exhibit a was the governments issues played as we evaluate energy for puerto rico, we must be particularly alert about disaster capitalist whos may try to take advantage and profit off of our peoples misery. But i didnt take three flights tore complain about prepa. I come before you with proposals to help us transform puerto ricos model. Energy equals life. As most Puerto Ricans understood after Hurricane Maria, the lack of a strong, resilient and Smart Energy System has the potential of killing people and destroying the economy. The actual death toll of not of Hurricane Maria but of hurricane prepa has not been properly disclosed by the government of puerto rico. While working hard to turn the lights back on as soon as possible, policymakers must also think longterm. A plan to transform puerto ric os energy model supported by significant funding is the right course of action. Innovation are transforming the energy industry. Puerto rico must break free from the centralized energy model. The people of puerto rico deserve an energy model whereby more and more customers are able to opt for distributed generation or go off the grid in their homes and business. Policymakers are agreeing with the idea of a new energy model based on several regional microgrids. Microgrids for key government and Security Installations such as hospitalses will also help Recovery Efforts after future storms and hurricanes. The mandate to the regulate microgrids is already in act 133 from last year was the last billy sponsored in the senate to include microgrids as a mandate, but however, a federal han date to include microgrids in a new energy model for puerto rico will certainly help. The stanford restricts them from rebuilding the grid as it was. Perhaps you may be able to change that by amending federal law. The grid is not able to deal with the technical challenges of an energy model that embraces renewable power. However, as i have said is, countless policymakers agreed just repairing the old obsolete energy grid of puerto rico will be a waste of tax dollars. The only entity able to finance this key project. Lets talk about the the whitefish scandal is a sad example of the shameful that characterizes can prepa. They awarded a no bid contract to an unknown company with just two employees. The government recently prepa to cancel the agreement. But 40 days after Hurricane Maria and hundreds of debts later, prepa did what it should have done from the start, request mutual aid offered by private and public electric companies. Where was prepas governing board . Nobody really knows but i submit to you that this whitefish business is very harmful to puerto ricos credibility. Very quickly, my time is almost up. Prepa collapsed under its 9 million debt. Congress and the administration and the Oversight Board must create a Financial Solution for prepas debt. Aggressive restructuring of the debt combined with new bonds and continued oversight over prepa could be a way to solve this monumental problem. Just to finish up, the most efficient way to transform the energy model of puerto rico is by giving the appropriate resources to puerto ricos Independence Energy commission. Independence and strong regulator is key for our recovery. And in order to guarantee a federal funds to build a new energy grid are properly used and coordinated i propose that the revitalization of puerto rico and the Puerto Rico Energy commission be given Sole Authority over prepa. Prepa shall cease to exist on its present form. Just to wrap up, thank you for the opportunity. The people of puerto rico urgently need to turn the lights back on. We also demand the resources to create a new energy model for our island. Our lives depend on it. Thank you. Thank you. We saved the best for last. Our final Opening Statements are going to be from miss kathy kennedy. Shes the National Vice president of the National Nurses united. Five minutes for an opening statement. Welcome. Vice chairman, olsen, Ranking Member rush and members of the subcommittee, good afternoon and thank you for inviting National Nurses to take part in this hearing. My name is Catherine Kennedy of carmichael, california, and i have been a registered nurse for 37 years. I currently serve as a Vice President of National Nurses united which is the Largest Union of rns in the country. I submit the testimony from nnus behalf. From october 4th through 18th, i served on a voluntary deployment to puerto rico with nnus registered Nurse Response Network to assist with Hurricane Marias disaster relief. 50 nurses deployed with rnr into puerto rico among 300 skilled Union Members organized by aflcio. Nnu nurses very much appreciate it your holding this hearing and providing us the opportunity to share our account of the Public Health crisis that we witnessed. In nnus full report on the conditions of puerto rico is attached to my written testimony. The lack of electricity is endangering peoples lives and leading to preventable death and illness. I was the lead rn for the Health Care Teams on the deployment. I helped to organize nurses into teams and with a map of the island, we tracked the Public Health assessment of each community we visited. Evaluating whether people had access to food, water, and health care, their basic Living Conditions and medical needs. Time and time again, we saw that lack of power exacerbated the disaster or created new ones. Basic medical services were down in many areas and not fully functioning in others. An acute Public Health crisis has developed. Without electricity, people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension cannot refrigerate their medications. For example, in louisa, nurses worked with elderly residents ho had to put their insulin in boles of tepid water trying to keep the life saving medication cool enough to use. Pharmacies could not refrigerate their medications either. They also cannot access Computer Systems which store prescription orders, therefore, patients were scrambling to find doctors to write new prescriptions so they can give them to the pharmacies. But many doctors offices were closed partly because the grid is still down and accessing reliable generators and fuel for them was nearly impossible. Pharmacies also cannot access Insurance Information so patients are being asked to pay full price for medications. Most people dont have cash and if they had money in the bank, they cant access it because the atms and the banking processes systems are also down. As long as the power grid is down, hospitals cannot function at full capacity. Generators are prone to failure and fuel is hard to access. With generators, hospitals cant perform certain procedures and tests which use a large amount of energy, and at one hospital, we know that they could not perform mris as long as they relied only on generators. Without reliable power, the problems of accessing food and water are amplified. The simple act of purchasing food and water, when it is available, is nearly impossible. Stores cant take credit cards and atms dont work. Bank services that normally take minutes now take hours. The people of puerto rico are unable to refrigerate and cook their food. They must rely on canned and processed foods, which are high in sodium. Access to food in Rural Communities are especially difficult. As long as there is no power, people will be relying on relief organizations to provide food and water for them. Electricity is also needed to run waste Water Treatment plants and to restore the functioning of water utilities. Without clean, running water, nurses have witnessed the beginnings of multiple outbreaks of the richest country on earth have been denied necessary humanitarian aid and left to die. With a growing climate crisis, keep it going where its not risk of some sort of breach. Once the storm clear, get it up like that. I want you to talk about how you prepare a firing thats directly in the path of owe storm like harvey to make sure to get that thing back on there as quickly as possible. Thank you for the question. I addressed some of this in my opening remarks. Most of this, in our ability to weather to storms, one, was our noble work force. We had thousands of people that were riding out these facilities when their own families and house us were in peril. They were keeping our facilities above water and ready to go. Also, lots of preparation. We have been working on storm prep for years. Working with the National Petroleum counsel and doe and dhs. This was not something we prepared for just a few weeks ago. We took all the Lessons Learned from prior storms and put them into action. We elevated what we could. We had much better storm tracking capabilities now, so we could identify where the storm was going and identify when we had to bring the systems down. Safety is the number one responsibility. Some of the facilities had to come all the way down. So i would end by saying a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication and we can applaud our employees enough. I know it just goes with the territory. You have leaks. Chemical leaks. We have these big tanks that have floating tops and the water got so high, almost five pete of rain, overcame the capability. So my question is, what are yall doing to prevent and respond before they happen . Its amazing what happened. It was such a stellar performance, but how do you make it even better Going Forward . Well, i can assure you that every company that was impacted and those that werent directly impacted are assessing how we responded to the storm. We as a trade association bring our members together. Share information and well work to improve. Every storm, we learn from the prior one to get better. Thank you. Question for you, mr. Mcbrayer. I was driving around pretty much for a week after harvey hit and you could find gasoline. Some shops were shut down. My question is was that because of power . Because of lack of supply, lack of gasoline . Or lack of the employees being able to get to work because of all the floods . Whats going on there . Again, you could find it, but some stations werent up and running. Auz as you mention, theres not price gouging, but people were panicking there would be no gasoline. All of this things you mentioned are correct. Some is due to the fact that we rely upon the employees living in the affected area, and like any good employer, we are more concerned about their life at home and being sure theyre prepared to meet the needs of their family before they return to work. We do have problems with electrical supply. Getting generators into our stores and specifically was quite challenging in the houston area because of the amount of flood ng the roadways. There are some stores that choose not to buy at the cost. That tend to go up during thies disasters. From most everyone is working hard. In our business, we build 50 year as sets. We are there for a long time. Our longterm is to supply what our guests and visitors need to work hard do that. Its an eside by side issue to determine what have problems are and what they need. We have stores in the South Houston area deal with water in tanks. Wed stores that were completely flooded out that are yet toe reopen. You have to assess one at atime be do what you can quickly to bring them back online. Not so much oil production, but levies that are breaching, they could find the uabs be then they were grounded. So how about the role of those . Those things are working and for some reason, they were shut down because there was some kind of dang b danger and that was not right to do. Any idea about little gas operations, fighting, storage, that uabs that can help out . We dont impact oil and gas particularly, but you know, in response to any storm, there should be a comprehensive plan thats undertaken, really driven by the local authorities. I was listening to your prior panel. Very interesting in that every utility works with for example, in georgia, they would work with not only the federal agency, fema, but with gema. And within that context, all Critical Infrastructure is evaluated with respect to the approaching threat. Therefore, we develop a set of priorities and essentially a response regime as to who you to provide the best benefit moving forward. I cant speak to missouri or whatever the impact is there, but i would assume theyve taken those things into account. Chair now recognizes the gentlemen from illinois. The Ranking Member, mr. Rush, for five minutes. I want to thank you, mr. Chairman. Miss kennedy, your testimony has been very very amazing. The. Im amaze at the breadth of the tragedies that are occurring even as we speak in puerto rico and im amazed at the length of proper attention. By those in our government, and in turn, their response to this american tragedy in puerto rico. Theres some who dispute the official death toll. Some say there were 51 casualties due to the hurricane. Yet the Puerto Rican Department of Public Health, Public Safety, rather, confirmed that over 900 bodies have been authorized for cremation. Since Hurricane Maria tore through that island. On september 20th. And that 900 figure includes deaths related to a lack of oxygen and other fatalities that appear to be due to a power outage. Some that those fatalities should just be considered natural deaths. Do you concur with this definition from your experience . You spent time there. Do you believe that the death toll from Hurricane Maria is actually 51, or is it closer to 900 . Or is it somewhere in between . Thank you for the question. We were there from october 4th through the 18th and as i said in my. The, what the nurses saw was that they were pretty much cut off from electricity, from anything. When you ask me, do i believe its 51 versus 911 or somewhere in between . Personally i think its more of the higher. You know, what we saw was people were desperate. Were considered almost the first ones they even saw. As it relates to food or water or any kind of communication. And through word of mouth, you know, they did say that, you know, the neighbor passed. Whether it was through leptospirosis or natural causes. You mentioned the lack of electricity. And without oxygen, so i think it is rather on the high side. Mr. Nieves, do you have any pertinent insigh into the actual number of fatalities be the reason for those fatalities . Yes. Basically, i agree with miss kennedy. The official death toll of 59 up until now is very superficial and misleading. By personal experience, i have had talk with those family, friend, that told me, oh, my grandmother died. She passed because she didnt have electricity in her nursing home. A lot of elderly people that dont have electricity are simply dying. How can you relate that to Hurricane Maria . Its very difficult, because it didnt happen that day. But the death toll n my view is in the hundreds. So even today as we sit here in this committee room, there are people who are still dying in puerto rico, simply because they have no electricity. Even today . I said in my testimony, people are dying today, not because of Hurricane Maria. Because because of hurricane prepa because they dont have electricity in their homes. I would agree. Without electricity, without power, you know, there are stories where patients actually go to san juan when the electricity is up and they take their nebulizers and plug them in so they can do the breathing treatments, or they sit the in clinics where they have access to okay general, use the oxygen there throughout the day, then they go home and theres no electricity and theyre without oxygen, without anything. Thank you mr. Chairman. I yield back. The chair calls upon the gentleman from illinois for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Great to have you here. I want to direct some of my questions to mr. Fanning. And mr. Fanning, if the electricity went out in atlanta, georgia, who would get called . Initially, paul bowers, president of Georgia Power company, but thats a pretty clear deal. You know whats interesting in these storms, we have essentially people that run the storm activity. They are fully empowered to work with whatever state, local, federal government to get the lights on as fast as we can. They have a clear sense of priority and they get the job done. So i still am again, puerto ricos an island. Its very difficult, and i kind of wish the administration would have deployed the 82nd airborne and just had a parachute jump into a lot of the communities that dont have access, at least so it would be a meal ration. And the military has even solar packs they take in afghanistan. If there was one thing i wish they would have done more than anything is really deployed. But you also heard in the last, the first panel, the fact that there was no request for help. Until five weeks later. Thats not normal. You represent the electricity sub sector coordinating counsel. Isnt that something you all do as part of that . Oh, absolutely. In fact, i would argue, especially this year, the electricity sub sector coordinating counsel was originally formed to focus on cyber and physical security. We have added to that this notion of storm response. Following sandy, the electronic Utility Industry reorganized what we call regional mutual stance groups. So now, under the structure of the escc, we bring together really for the first time, an enhances collaboration, not only of investor owned utility responses, but also collaboration coordination with municipal utilities. We offer that up and we participate in a series of restoration activities, federal government, local, and with each other. And we do that also interdependent with the other kind of industries that you all were talking about in the last segment. That is telecom. So important. Water and sewer. Health care. Believe it or not, we go beyond the notion of offering stance just for the restoration of electrons. In houston particularly, my company got called on for two things that had nothing to do with electricity. One was for the humanitarian rescue effort. Within 20 minutes of a phone call, we sent forward pilots and drones to help identify where survivors and other people may be. Secondly, through alabama power, we delivered machinery that was able to operate in very high water conditions that was used to help rescue people. Thank you. And the puerto rican Power Electric authority, they are not involved in this group, are they . They work under the aegis of the American Public power association, which is essentially a municipal organization. We offered help. But the state of puerto rico for whatever reason elected to pursue a different path. Not from the mutual assistance rubric. Let me go mr. Nieves. Went we look back now on lessons learn beside how we want to move forward, would you agree that we probably should look at ways in which the whole community could be helpful and develop these momentum remorandums of understd how we can get joint use and Quick Response . That would be a pretty good Lesson Learned in this . The fact is that the American Public policy organization and the Electronic Institute offer it. Prepa pursued another way. Its in the a lack of an agreement, but it was a lack of will from prepa part. Then we have the excite fish situation. Im sure we are going to have time to continue to look at that, but thats believing yo your testimony, which i do, thats criminal negligence. The chair calls upon to gentlewoman from in for five minutes. Thank you all very much for being here, the more we hear directly from folks like you that are in the u. S. Virgin islands and puerto rico, the more disturbing it gets. I think you can sense the outrage building from this committee over the Puerto Rico Power Authority. Are you surprised prepa didnt pond to this community and in essence refused to appear here . Sad to say, im not surprised. When you used to share with the committee, one of the things we found was their total lack after transparency. To me, this is a lack of respect for this community that theyre not here. Were you surprised to hear mr. Alexander in preparing the grid of puerto rico, were you surprised to learn he hasnt been able to have a conversation with prepa . Sadly, im not surprised. So how do we justify taxpayer dollars now going to repair a grid in puerto rico, trying to work with prepa after they refused to work with the committee, theyre not working with the army core of engineers. Theyre wasting taxpayer money through the white fish contract that has outraged so many people and yet the immediate is so great on the island . How do you recommend we move forward . We are going to have to address the prepa situation in law as soon as possible i would assume. First of all, we have to really understand that at the end of the day, even prepa, we need to think that people are dying. Our economy is dying. So how do we work around that . Around prepas lack of governance and transparency . My suggestion that i did in my testimony is that since Congress Already passed the promise act and the Oversight Board named the coordinator that has been appointed to take over prepa that Congress Finds a way, a specific mandate that federal taxpayer money to create a new energy grid, be under the super vision of the coordinator of the board and the Puerto Rico Energy commission. Independent, nonpolitical, nonpartisan and highly technical body. So you can bypass prepa and the government of puerto rico. That could be a way to get around it. We have to have a sense of urgency do this because theyre talking about the next emergency bill maybe will be maeb in december. Hopefully. Theres a lot of things on the agenda for congress in december. Time is of the easy sense here. Colleagues we simply have to find a way to at least begin to plan to build in some resiliency. Get the power on but again to play the ground work for a modern electronic grid and address the ineptitude of the puerto rican Power Authority. Lives hang in the balance. We have to experts ott our finger tips. Does congress are the ka pass the i to act with a sense of urgency knowing how our federal citizens are suffering there . Thats a chamg for us. Thank you all very much for being here. I yield back my time. Yields back. The chair calls on the gentleman from mississippi, greg harper. Thank you. Congratulations to the astros. Thank you. I know it was a great series. I want to thank each of for being here. This is still something thats stunning the hurricanes we have had to deal with this season. Certainly what has happened in puerto rico has concerned us all. So mr. Fanning, i know you mentioned its more than just power or restoration of power, its also telecom, water, and sewer issues. Can you talk for a moment be tells how utilities crews the Communications Network to recover and respond from hurricanes and other weather related events and how reliable to the Communications Network need to be . Thank you congressman. Thank you for your service to the great state of mississippi. Thank you. Best example of that is katrina. As you know. I think the story gets told in the new orleans and the breaching of the dam. The truth is, in mississippi when katrina came through, every light was out around mississippi power. When you went in to try to restore that activity, the streets were unrecognizable. You couldnt even use, essential i will, gps to find your way around. All of the telecom was out as well. We have to have an interconnected effort between telecom and electricity in order to most efficiently respond to these sorts of disasters. Southern company, as a matter of its own resilient strategy, has our own dedicated Telecom Company in which we can bring in mobile cells on wheels, towers essentially to set those things up. As i am working with the context of the escc we were not canned to help but we were working with different parts of the economy to try to bring help to that island. I called personally john donovan, whens the number two guy at at t, as i understand it, and also at hold on at verizon lowle macadam, the ceo there to bring our evidents down there. We assured each other between telecom and electricity weld provide every level support whether it was asked for or not to try to get the situation rectified. It is criticalle if we are going communicate with people in the feel, we have we have node some way to caulk to get the stuff back on. Its absolutely critical. You provided assistance in the area even though it was not requested. Thats right. Ill give great kudos to the folks at fema, whether its brock long i was on the flr of fema during the weekend during the situation. Another guy that works in dhs, chris krebs. In the white house, tom boss sert. All of these peeps have been champions in trying to aid the situation without a whole lot of encouragement. Southern companies right in the middle of what i guess we call the hurricane belt. Southern company has a long and good tropical record of restoration after a hurricane. Both not only in your home service area, but helping your neighbors, certainly through the escc and others. Have you seen changes from katrina youre using after that . Absolutely. We have the mantra. No matter how good we think we are, we can always be better, me included. We are accountable for always improving. When you think about some of testimony its not just about electr electrons. Its about restoring life. Whether its harvey, irma, the escc demonstrated a much better capability of working across not only duh also across industries, telecom, finance, water, et cetera. Those are particularly good things. The other thing is this whole notion new technology being brought there. We have floied that in terms of resiliency of america. Wls the cyberprotection but also natural disasters. I yield back, mr. Chairman. The gentleman yeel yields back we call to tn man who made sure the texans signed justin verlander. I wish i could. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Can you talk about how quickly refined production was back online after Hurricane Harvey . I sat down and met with line dell refinery and also shell, and a lot of folks dont understand you cant just turn switches off and on and get them back up. Now the price of oil is going down buzz b. A. Does refineries are going back up, i know in our area. I know a lot of my constituents worked around the dlok get that back up. One of concerns i had was the issue with the tanks. In east harris county, we have the tanks that are we keep building them because its either Holding Crude Oil or product or whatever. The ennearigineering of them noa floating roof. Because of the amount of water that hit that top, it turned the wat top over. Water went into that. Emissions from that, but also overflowing because when you get 52 in 52 in 52 inches of rain anywhere, youre going to have a problem. Has the industried at what we are going to do . We are going to have to look at it. Fwou see if engineering wise, theres a way we dont repeat that problem if we have another not its when we are going to have another storm. On the texas gulf coast, we have lived through them. Well get through this too, but its not pretty. We need to learn from our mistakes if we have another 52inch rain in those plants. Has there been talk about across from ap ishlgs . Like you said, just talking with two companies they had to look at it and see whats going on. Thank you for the remarks. Yes, our industry, as i said in open remarks we fared fairly well. We werent perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We were better prepared than prior storms of we installed a lot of floating roofs. In the normal states emissions were much lower. But we werent prepared for 60 inches of rein at times. So many a tanks did have fail yours. That was the exception, in the the rule. This is already a number one topic of conversation about how to prevent this Going Forward. Im sure there will be eng neuroing to make sure these problems dont happen Going Forward. Can you talk about the difference in how quick the refining sector came online and how long it took for the petrochemical . The refining came online more quickly am lot of that was from preparation. The petrochemical, about 75 ps of that capacity returned to the industry. Some of our facilities they were under lot of water and its taken a lot of time to get those facilities back up. Repairs had to be made. Were well on our way. Hopefully back up to full capacity soon. I also know you can tell that at the price of pump because the prices went up 25, 30 cents a gallon. Now its back down. Maybe not in washington, but in Southeast Texas its gone down maybe a little higher than it was, but still, its not 2. 49. Its 2. 19. Certainly we are getting closer to prehurricane levels but since that time, the price of crude oils is higher so certainly thats being reflected at the pump as well. Yeah. I dwreeyield back. The chair calls the best bird watcher. The gentleman from west virginia. Virginia. Thank you very much. Mr. Fanner, mr. Harper touched on this a minute ago. Making sure we have lines of communication up. The National Infrastructure advising counsel, noting the criticality that its playing here, electronic utilities may need some dedicated spectrum space. What do you think . Theres a number of solutions that go to that very important problem. Even to be provocative in the circumstances of a national emergency, should you have dedicated Internet Access . Theres a lot of things you node to clear the way for. So many people today lose faith in the government, the institution and the people that one it and all that. Ky say without equivocation that in response to these events, whether its not white house, tom boss ert, rick perry one of the things we can do is work with these focus. So often the question goes to whos no charge. You know who knows how to get stuff done with the line crews, the people that have the boots on the ground. When there are barriers we have to work in this effective Public Private partnership to get whatever barriers exist out of the way. The government has been fabulous during this, harvey and irma particularly. I appreciate that. Thank you for your answer. Mr. Rhymer, i was very pleased to, as i was listening to your testimony, listen to you talk about microgrid and listen to you describe how theyre going work with the full system and if theyre going stand alone. Appreciate it. Hope you have success in that. I look forward to sometime when its working. I think thats helpful not just in the islands but in mountains and other parts of the united states. Mr. Nieves did i say that close to right . Thanks. Appreciated your stark comments. It seems there have been a lot of problems with the electronic utility in puerto rico for some time based on your comments. Im just wondering, the federal government is going to be asked to come in there and spend a lot of money. I understand that and think its right. If we do so, do you think government there, particularly the electronic utility is going to be willing to introduce these and working on ways to use puerto rico as a land of experiments where we can try Different Things . They wont all necessarily work, but things we can do to make it better longterm . And try some of the ideas out there that we have heard about for years and never had the chance all the tragedy thats taking place in puerto rico, which im very and worry about and figure out what we can do, we may have an opportunity. Do you think the company would be willing to embrace that . My proposal is that if our government is going step up and allocate considerable resources not just to repair the old grid, but rate a new grid, you cannot do that alone. You have to also establish a specific mandate in the law saying we are appropriating this x amount of dla force build a new grid for puerto rico, but with these specifications. I submit that these microgrids could really work to great a strong resilient system that mating as well be ordered under puerto rico local law. Last year, when i was a senator, we authorized microgrids and the Puerto Rico Energy commission is right now working on an expedited to put them in place, but i submit that x amount of dollars have to be with a specific mandate. I appreciate that and would agree that we are going to have to do Different Things there. One of things that might help is if we have a utility accountable to shareholders. I dont know how you would spend that off with the as sets they have, but i noticed one of the problems you have is you have a semiregulated monopoly, it was a nonprofit. Its amazing when youre trying to figure out ways to make you more efficient, you come across ways to make profit, even if its not much of a profit. I yield back. The gentleman from the commonwealth of virginia yields back. The chairman calls upon the chairman from amsterdam, new york. Thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Rhymer, your. The mentioned that the water and Power Authority had used fema hazardous medication ramps to bury underground. When did you receive those grants . 2010, 2011. We have underground in a portion of st. Thomas and st. Croix. We are seeking more to underground in st. John and additional parts of st. Thomas and st. Croix. Is there any other fema money youre looking to we are seeking to get mitigation grants for the microgrid stuff, Renewable Energy stuff that adds to the microgrid and and hardening of the system, the administration. The Line Department building is destroyed so we need to have that building be resilient. Thank you. New york state and the utilities are benefitted greatly by the assistance after super tomorrow sandy. Now its our turn to be called upon. Its your turn to be called upon in making things better. Mr. Fanning, do you believe the mutual assistance efforts work well . Theyre outstanding. I know islanding present unique challenges to mobilizing workers and equipment, but can you think of specific reasons mutual assistance would be resistant . No. Okay. Mr. Nieves. You testified that puerto ricos grid had limitations, certainly in the amount of Renewable Resources that could be integrated. What are the reasons for that . According to a 2014 report, prepa received the grid, as it stood before maria, to only integrate up to 580 normal mega watts. The grid that wed could not really tolerate without jeopardizing the system. So is it a matter of better interconnect devices . Theres a technology selfready that might be able to help your situation . Thats right, but prepas grid was net a smart grid. It was in the a grid that could really accommodate a system where by customers are also generating power. Theyre not just passive customers of an energy model. So prepa according to that report from semens, prepa grid can only tolerate up to that amount, which is unacceptable, and a really small amount. Miss kennedy, thank you for making it so clear that Puerto Ricans are still dealing with a life and death situation. Can you further describe the situation due to to a lack of safe water in puerto rico . . Sure. We were there for two weeks and one of things the nurses had to do was go out into the community and take a look at what resources were available. Time and again, it was the lack of clean running water. One of the things the nurses saw was that people were very desperate, so they were actually drinking from river water, water that came down, they would save from their roofs. With hurricanes you have rodents and bacteria, so the prospect of lep toe spy rose is, so people were infected. If people were treated properly, it wouldnt be life threatening. I have also seen some photos shared with me by family members in my district and they cause grave concern. I believe and i think miss kennedy would agree that we need it have a discussion ant waiving cost requirements. Especially for our water systems. Its a Public Health, Public Safety situation. I would also express that puerto rico can learn a great deal from new yorks rev initiative. It was in response to Superstorm Sandy situation. Our state has worked to understand differences in utility model. My concern is that if we build back to this failed system that you cite, its a very troublesome investment made by any level of government and the private sector, and we need do better than that and encourage smart, flexible, reliable grid for a cleaner Stronger Energy future. With that, i yield back, and congratulations for the last time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Calls upon the gentleman from our neighbor to the north, oklahoma. Chairman you are almost in a gid giddy form today. I wonder why. Guilty as charged. The third baseman for the chargers with shave and cut his hair now, right . I appreciate you guys coming up here and informing members of congre congress. Its important for us to have a working relationship in a situation like this. Its been a long day, and i appreciate your alls patience, but i feel like we are going continue to learn from these lessons. What we dont want do do is get in the habit of repeating them. The physical work of the restoration i know falls mainly on industries but what role does the federal government play in this . They play an exceedingly important role. As i described earlier, when i think about the role of the escc, i think about it in three levels. The first is to harmonize the effort of the federal government. When you talk about private public partnership, does a partnership end when the federal dollars are put in and then the Utility Companies reap the benefits of it, or does the federal partnership get paid back . Partnership exists whether theres a disaster or not. This is our what we call playbook. This is our regime in which we respond to cyber, physical or natural disasters. What it describes here is frankly not only the unity of effort, but also the unit of message and the hows around restoration effort. That has to be harmonized in not only the federal government, but electricity in this case. In the cyberwar fafarcyberwarfa going broad di transportation and water and then theres other priorities going from that. Dont ever forget the need to harmonize state and local efforts the boots on the ground that will ultimately impact our ability to deliver. When we talk about partnership are we talking about financial spoirt . Youre describing all of the above from the logistics behind it to the federal government stepping out and getting some of the red tape out, letting you guys go work. Yeah, absolutely right. In fact, somebody else mentioned this they made a recommendation to the president. Everything around here . Yeah, i know it. Electricity, finance, telecom, what well do is bring ceos together, me and others represe representing the sector to put together a common set of regulatory commissions, policies, information sharing, and physical coordination. If we can get that done, that is an enormous activity. The other thing that i think we need do is inform policy makers like you all. Thats why i applaud this effort. Because theres so much noise around these types of disasters or potential disasters. We have to take action before they get here. If all we are doing is reacting to the latest we have to pitch not catch. I agree with that. Look at that. Wasnt that neat. You getting a little zing in there for the chairman. Wow. That was thinking on your feet. I agree with that. Weld love to move to a point of being more proactive than reactive. I should applaud the idea of putting together that committee where we can say, this is what we need, this is why it happens so we can react better. I think it needs to be ceo led. 87 of the infrastructure is owned by private industry. We have to work together. Right. Mr. Mcbrayer, the epa issues fuel waivers for diesel and gasoline that maybe didnt meet the standards but was able to get delivered. Twhauz helpful . I think it was effective and helpful at the time. I think wochb things we have to adjust as it relating to getting fuel, folks who are your constituents, our consumers, in the southeast, we are transitioning from summer grade gasoline to winter grade gasoline. Because of the specifications, winter gasoline is less costly than summer grade gas. So wlur an inventory in a store, or a terminal diminish the amount of supply you have because youre going to take a 10 cent, 15 cent devaluation of that inventory basically at 12 01 a. M. On the 17th. One thing i would ask is to take a look at that date. Is that the only date in the southeast we can convert to the higher gasoline, or is there a way to allow that date to move from time to time or be it fixed so folks like racetrack and other member of our association are not forced by the changing costs to diminish inventories in a time when hurricanes are more likely to occur . Thats a great point. Chairman, thank you for entertaining a little more time there. I yield back. Seeing only astros fans, i would like to thanks our witness again for being here today. I have a question to enter nine documents for the record. Number one is the prepa letter. Number two an appa letter to the commerce on Sub Committee. Another is a letter. A letter from a farmer to the energy and commerce Sub Committee. Number five is the attachments. Number six, letter. Number nine, letter to senators murkowski is cantwell from a rm toer epa official and puerto rican prime minster. Chairman, i want to reiterate my request for that prepa be subpoenaed and we have fema, who are on the Sub Committee in in the near future. Chairman walden. Pursuant to Committee Rules i will remind members they have ten Business Days to submit questions for the record. When final comment point of personal privilege you guys have, it looks like 23 1 2 hours to get to houston for our big parade for our astros. Without on section, the Sub Committee is adjourned
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